


Plaything

by ginkyou



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:33:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21673747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginkyou/pseuds/ginkyou
Summary: In which, as always, Rudolf and Death dance on the brink between delight and despair. Or: in which a murderous plan is hatched and then immediately discarded. Or: in which handjobs and handguns go hand-in-hand.
Relationships: Rudolf von Österreich-Ungarn | Rudolf Crown Prince of Austria/Der Tod | Death (Elisabeth)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Plaything

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd as always. The bones of this fic are like a year old at this point but I only now got around to actually finishing it. I'm still in the psych ward atm so I edited and am posting this fic on my phone so forgive any blatant errors.  
> As always, let me know if you enjoy it, I am a lonely piece of trash floating in the ocean and I depend on validation from strangers on the internet to survive

The Crown Prince’s chambers stank of alcohol and desperation. Empty liquor bottles littered an already crowded writing desk, were strewn across the floor, stood on chairs and dressers - fine wines, mostly, with some unlabeled harder liquors mixed in; liquors that had probably been burnt illegally in shacks and lean-tos somewhere in the deeper, darker forests of the dual monarchy. A lot of tobacco had been smoked and few windows opened. The room smelled as good as it looked. Which was to say, not very good. The Crown Prince himself did not exactly look presentable, either, in his ink-stained dressing gown, hair wild, eyes rimmed red with exhaustion.

“So,” Death asked with a sunny, white-toothed smile so wide it could've started a war, “how’s Court?” Rudolf groaned and fell back into his chair. He draped a hand over his weary eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose exhaustedly, exasperatedly. Death noted that Rudolf's fingertips were stained black. Somebody had been writing, it seemed. Good. Somebody had a tendency to write material very much unfitting for a Crown Prince. And said somebody also had a tendency to become increasingly unstable the more they wrote (or wrote more the more unstable they got - probably both simultaneously). Just the way Death liked it.

“Christ, you have no idea,” Rudolf replied finally from the deepest depths of his chair. That was a lie, of course. They both knew well that Death stalked the court more often than not, beguiling the Empress and gently guiding the monarchy to its, in Rudolf’s eyes inevitable, demise - but that didn’t matter, none of it mattered. Only one thing mattered: the Crown Prince was drunk and he was angry, and Death had quite expertly given him and excuse to finally air that anger out. Rudolf's wiry frame tensed up in the shadows of his chair. Death smiled at him across the room like cat smiled at a mouse. “I haven’t slept in three days," Rudolf continued, sounding more and more exasperated with each word, "and I haven’t slept properly in twice as long, and nobody in this godforsaken fancy stuck-up town knows how to make anything but this, this… hooch!” He punctuated this by throwing the shot glass he had been holding at nothing in particular. It exploded against the wall, raining shards of glass and a good amount of liquor over a beautiful and deathly boring painting of some royal relative or another. Rudolf meanwhile mamaged to crawl out of his chair and attempted to stagger in Death's direction, succeeding only vaguely.

“I wanted to go out last night, sneak out even" - Rudolf's gestures became grander the more excited he got - "but they caught me before I even made it out the gate! Caught me and, and brought me back here, as if I'm a zoo animal that escaped, always smiling, always respectful, yes Sire, yes, you see, Sire, can’t have you running outside when, god, I should be inside bowing and prancing and dancing to their tune, bullshit!” Death, despite not having been able to follow his meaning entirely and not really caring to, either, shook his head in a vaguely compassionate manner. “Exactly,” Rudolf responded and threw his hands in the air, as if Death had said anything. Rudolf managed to knock an expensive-looking miniature of a shepherd and his dog off a side table. He paused momentarily and stared at it. A deep, existential sadness spread through him like poison spreads through a river, slowly killing all it came into contact with. Then the moment was over and Rudolf pirouetted back towards his writing desk with the kind of grace and vigor only extreme drunkenness could bestow upon a person. “And, as if that wasn’t enough, that I, a grown man, won’t be let out on my own, I ran into- let out on my own into a country I’m one day going to rule, nonetheless!- ran into, guess who!” Death, somewhat blindsided by the sudden question, did not respond immediately. Rudolf pointed at him, rage furrowing his brows and alcohol swallowing his consonants. “Guess who!” Death, who knew the answer, stayed silent. After a moment that felt like an eternity, Rudolf's features softened. His hand, pointing accusatorily, fell. His shoulders slumped.

“Gondrecourt,” Rudolf finally surrendered. The name should have sounded like a curse coming from his mouth, like all the trauma, all the agony and pain and suffering rolled into one short word, more monster born from a child’s nightmares than man- but all it sounded like was just another lost boy trying to grapple with the damage that had been to him. Damage that would never, could never go away. Death clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

“God," Rudolf started, eyes wide, shoulders still slumped. His hands, limp, now balled into fists, tighter and tighter. "I wish I could-" His fists were raised now, his shoulders tensed and tight, eyes so wide Death could see the whites from across the room. "I wish I could- I could- I should-” Rudolf groaned and punched at nothing. Death stepped closer silently and gracefully as Rudolf grappled with the unspeakable. There was sweat beginning to form on Rudolf's brow, like a wish so horrible it didn't even want to be thought, let alone said out loud, was slowly pushing its way out of his brain and into his mouth. Death dabbed at Rudolf's forehead with a handkerchief. He let him take his time, standing next to him silently, patiently, with a smile on his lips. Death knew when to push, and when to merely wait. Sure, some ideas needed to be pushed and pulled and coaxed into existence, but others needed very little help, growing freely and happily like a distorted pearl forming inside a dying oyster, like a tumor, like an unborn fetus rotting inside a womb. When Rudolf finally turned to face him, the Crown Prince's brows were raised and his eyes wide and his face was as white as the winter snow, as if he couldn’t believe himself what he was about say. “I," Rudolf said slowly and deliberately, "want to kill him.”

Death raised his chin slightly and smiled, his eyes narrowing and his head cocking to the side slightly. He let Rudolf take a deep, shuddering breath while he himself tasted the depth of the idea like a fine wine. “Do you now?” Death asked, smiling.

“By God yes, I- God, yes, yes- if I could only- if I-” Rudolf stumbled in a mad scramble over words and sentences and finally over a chair, which had stood between him and his desired glass of liquor. He did not even give himself time to feel the pain before he grabbed the shot and threw it back, coughing at the sharp bite of the alcohol. He slammed the glass down onto the desk and froze, suddenly.

Rudolf stared at something on the desk. It was big and it was deadly and Death had quite an inkling of what it was that Rudolf was looking at.

The gun looked heavy, polished, well-used and well-oiled. It fit snugly into Rudolf’s hand and when he lifted it up, it looked brand new. It wasn't, of course. It was an old, familiar friend. Rudolf turned it slowly in the light as if to show it off to Death, who smiled knowingly. Here was an acquaintance they both knew and loved. How often had Rudolf played with it, how often had he held it, caressed it, turned the muzzle until it pointed at his own chest only to falter before the last, crucial step? During how many of those times had Death’s hands been gently cupping Rudolf's own, had Death’s lips been whispering loving encouragements in Rudolf's ears?

And then, as so often before, Rudolf faltered. “No. No, I can’t.” His voice was soft. “I couldn’t.”

“What makes you say that?" Death's voice was soft too, but in a snakeskin kind of way. "It’s easy. You just point the gun and pull the trigger. You’re a soldier, boy, you’ve done it often enough before. Just point the gun and pull the trigger. You won’t even feel it." Death was pressed against Rudolf's back now, his black fingernails gently playing with the curves and angles of the gun. Rudolf couldn't remember when Death had gotten so close to him. Rudolf couldn't remember anything but Death being so close to him. 

"Do you know what it’s like to stab someone?" Death asked. His voice was as gentle as the sigh a crowd makes when the hesitant jumper finally lets go of the railing. "You feel them, you’re inside them, but not with this, no, it doesn’t change you. You’ve done it before. You're good at it. There’s no difference if there is a bird or a man in front of your muzzle. You just point the barrel and pull the trigger. It's easy, my boy.”

“Point and pull,” Rudolf repeated softly and shudderes. Death was looming over him now like a gravedigger over an open grave, and Rudolf was in the casket, in the open casket, being lowered into the ground, but wait, he was still alive, still alive in there, but down came the earth, down it came without mercy, burying him.

“It’s simple. You’ve done it before.” Death’s whisper was sweet like honey. They dripped down Rudolf's throat and under his shirt, over his sweaty, sensitive skin, and he hissed at the sensation.

Rudolf opened his mouth to reply but found no words in it; they had all been washed away by sleepless nights and alcohol and drugs and in that emptiness Death had made a nest, a nest made of broken boy dreams and searing hot shame, of anger, of indignation. Death was looming behind him, no, above him, no, all around him, like a terrible ancient god revealing itself, bringing nothing but awe and despair and carrying the end of the world in its intricately manicured fingertips.

Rudolf's vision blurred and dancing, twisting, the gun still in his hand, a terrible, dreadful weight, the weight of ships crashing and of hospitals burning and of eyeballs popping. And he looked up at Death and Death looked down at him and they both knew what it was that Rudolf was thinking, and the gun burned so feverishly in Rudolf's hand.

Rudolf swallowed and blinked but it didn't help, nothing could help at this point, he was trapped, he was prey, and so he did the only thing he knew how to - the only thing he had ever, truly known in his short, sad life -; he slowly lifted the gun to his head. The muzzle was like ice against his temple, and his eyes were pleading now and his lips were parting and he wanted it, he wanted it to be over. But Death’s mouth missed his, sliding whisper-fast against his cheek, teeth scratching against jawline and Rudolf closed his eyes and let out a sob in defeat.

Rudolf could feel Death's lips curl into a smile against his cheek because of course they did. Of course it was all a game to Death. What else would it be? What else could it ever have been? Death moved to open Rudolf's trouser with fingers skilled from millennia of seduction and Rudolf did not resist, only shifted his hips slightly to let Death's fingers get to where they were trying to go.

Rudolf was holding the gun against his temple on his own now, even as Death slithered up to bite at his earlobe, as Death's body (cold, so cold) rubbed against him, as Death pressed him into the bed like a bird of prey getting ready for the final, killing strike. Gondrecourt- killing, even- was long gone now, was far away, had just been another lock pick to open yet another door into the darkest recesses of Rudolf's mind and Rudolf knew it, had known it all along, of course. This dance was old, as old as he himself, or maybe as old as humanity, and he was just another unwilling dancer being whirled around to an unforgiving tune.

He didn't cry out, he didn't even moan, he only whimpered as Death's soft fingers did what they always did on nights like these; what they did when the Crown Prince was at his worst, pressing and prodding and stroking until breath quickened and whimpers intensified and mouths and eyes and body begged for more, more, more. And just as it always happened on nights like these, Death kept biting and grabbing and hitting that exact right spot with expert hands and finally, immediately after an eternity, after a second, Rudolf came, desperate, never satisfied, never fulfilled, the inconsolable void inside him still yearning, still empty, forevermore. And just as he always did on nights like these, Death slunk away happily and silently like a cat that had gotten into the cream supply. He hadn't taken his prize but he hadn't meant to, anyway. Playing with his toy was much more fun than killing could ever be.

Rudolf, left behind, his clothes a mess, the gun still in his hand, stared at the ceiling and could not remember a time when he had felt more cold than he did at this very moment.


End file.
